Horse travel in backcountry areas of national parks long has been viewed as not only somewhat romantic, a throwback to the Old West, but also as a necessity for hauling in not only visitors but vast amounts of gear that otherwise would be problematic to carry in.
But for those not on a horse, walking in their wake can be a challenge in terms of avoiding not only at-times voluminous amounts of manure, fresh and old, but also hoof-pocked trails and trampled areas. During wet seasons, dozens of hooves can pretty much trash trails.
A federal court in California recently took up the case of the use of stock animals in wilderness areas of Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks, and agreed with a hikers' organization that the National Park Service violated The Wilderness Act by failing to study the necessity of pack trips in the parks.
Somewhat interestingly, the ruling comes more than 40 years after the Park Service decided it would phase-out the use of stock animals in the high country of the two parks, but never fulfilled that decision.
The ruling (attached below) brings to fore the question of how damaging pack trips are to wilderness areas in the National Park System.
The case, which has been making its way through the legal system since 2009, was brought by the High Sierra Hikers Association. In its initial filing in September 2009 the group pointed out that when Sequoia officials adopted a master plan for the two parks in 1971, they specifically announced their intent to both phase out stock use from higher elevation areas of the two parks that are particularly sensitive to impacts and to eliminate grazing in all areas of the parks.
In reaching that decision, park officials at the time cited "the damage resulting from livestock foraging for food and resultant trampling of soils, possible pollution of water, and conflict with foot travelers..." the association's filing noted.
When the Park Service adopted a General Management Plan for the two parks in 1997, it did not reiterate the desire to phase out stock use, but instead decided to allow stock use "up to current levels."
In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg held that Sequoia and Kings Canyon officials failed to conduct the requisite studies into the commercial need for pack trips in the two parks. Specifically, the judge noted in his ruling late last month, the Park Service must examine how commercial backcountry uses impact the landscape and "balance ... their potential consequences with the effects of preexisting levels of commercial activity."
"The Park Service has ignored and evaded the requirements of the Wilderness Act for decades," said Peter Browning, president of the High Sierra Hikers Association. "We hope that this court decision will prompt the Park Service to follow the law by limiting stock use and commercial services in our national parks to those that are truly necessary and not harmful to park resources."
Comments
My brain's a little overwhelmed too. I'd been keeping up with this case and had also read (and even understood) the Blackwell decision. This is a little more dense. But as near as I can understand, the court found that NPS was in violation of the Wilderness Act because it did not undertake a finding of necessity to determine to what extent stock use should be permitted by commercial packers in the Wilderness of Sequoia Kings. If I read it correctly (and I'm not sure I do) it threw out the park's General Management Plan (GMP) because of this violation.
The court did not find NPS in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for, as HSHA contends, failing to consider a number of specific impacts that stock have on the park's backcountry (not necessirily designated wilderness).
So commercial stock is not banned at the moment, and I doubt it will be. It may, though, eventually be much more restricted.
The critical point to remember is that the Wilderness Act sets out the rules for people to enjoy wilderness. Stock can be justified in a National Park wilderness only to the extent that the animals further wilderness qualities: either by supporting the maintenance of wilderness trails or facilities or by allowing visitors to experience wilderness by being transported into it by stock. The animals themselves have no
intrinsic rights to be in wilderness independent of their support of allowable human activity.
A number of people's comments here concentrate on the impact of stock on trails -- which is the most obvious (manure, mechanical hoof impacts). However, HSHA based much of their case on other much more critical impacts: water quality as a result of manure; impacts on meadows from grazing (removing tons of vegetation each year) and mechanical impacts as a result of rolling in meadows causing loss of vegetation; streambank erosion when they go to drink & etc. As such, both HSHA and the court correctly do talk about livestock and grazing because that's the root of the problem.
The real question, not so clearly stated in the opinion, is whether these impacts are justified by the very small numbers of people the horses and mules bring in to the Wilderness. This is, though, addressed by the court's finding that NPS needs to determine if those impacts are justified by requiring NPS to carry out the "finding of necessity" to determine if continued stock use (and likely at what level) will be allowed.
To carry one person into the park's wilderness for, say, three nights usually requires three to four animals and one packer. Estimates vary, but a conservative multiplier of the impact of a single horse over that of a human on foot is about 20 times the impact. So one person wanting a recreation experience on a stock-supported trip for three nights will cause at least 60 times the impact vs. a single person just hiking without that stock support.
There are also glaring differences in how impacts from people are regulated and how impacts from stock are regulated. If a scout troop of 15 people were to camp directly on an alpine meadow, remove grass for beds, and dig holes for their fire pits they would, justifiably, be cited for the violations. If a group of 15 horses and mules (supporting a party of, say, 5 people) remove that same grass by eating it, then roll in the meadows (which they do) creating "roll pits" devoid of vegetation, that's considered an acceptable impact by NPS until a certain level is reached. A local ranger or biologist can determine that impact has become unacceptable and stop or limit grazing, but only AFTER the damage has occurred. In the case of the scouts, existing regulations prevent them from camping in the meadow in the first place. The meadows are fairly well protected from the impacts of people, but not from the impacts of stock.
George
Zeb,
Here's the dilemma we face:
Another perspective could be that you're selfish in that you want to impose your mode of enjoyment on those who would prefer to enjoy the wilderness without bikes -- the setting that The Wilderness Act currently provides -- that you don't care about their wilderness experience and whether you destroy it.
The resulting question is, how can this be resolved? Where's the compromise?
Hi, MM,
The opinion was not well written. It talked at one point about the Wilderness Act (as construed by federal court decisions) being highly restrictive on commercial uses. But at other points, if I recall correctly, it talked about large mammals' environmental damage without mentioning outfitters' commercial nature. And in fact, the way it reads, it quickly lost sight of the fact that the plaintiff was objecting to horses' and mules' effects. It talked about grazing and livestock, so the reader could be forgiven for thinking it was talking about cattle ranching.
If it had been better written, it would have clarified better which of its conclusions rested on commercial activity and which rested on horse and mule use, commercial or not.
To add to Kurt's point:
Everyone -- and I mean everyone -- has some activity that they want to carry out in what has been designated as Wilderness. They get upset when told they can't. There are an infinite number of things people want to do: bring their ATVs, ride horses, ride bicycles, hang glide, run competative foot races, get dropped off by helicopter to fish, have their supplies delivered by aircraft, fly model remote-controlled (or GPS programmed) aircraft, bring their dogs, bring "companion" animals for disabilities (a problem in National Parks only), play loud music over speakers in camp, wash themselves or their dishes in streams, Etc. etc. ...
We can probably agree that a number of these are clearly not allowed by the Wilderness Act. Still, we're clearly denying some people access to "their" wilderness or restricting what they can do there. The gray areas are left to the courts and this stuff is often in litigation, as the HSHA/NPS case shows.
So when Kurt and others say that riding bikes in designated wilderness is an unacceptable impact, that's a matter of law. Sure, it denies bike people a wilderness experience if they want to travel with their bike, but it's not just randomly imposing a preference on a particular group. Nor does it deny them access, only the mode of access. The decision is based on a number of guiding legislation and philosophy -- the Wilderness Act and the Organic Act among them. How else to limit what people want to do and keep the basic values of wilderness intact?
George
Kurt,
The answer to your question is pretty straightforward: it's a public good and we have to share. Just like our parents taught us when we were kids.
George,
Lumping bicycles with ATVs does not further your argument. Ban on bicycle (as we explained before) is not a legislative matter, but a matter of federal agency interpretation. If you studied the original decision to ban bicycles, you'd learn that there was much debate within federal agencies as to what to do. Truth is that the decision had not much to do with Act intent (since the intent was to allow bikes) or philosophy, and much to do with not knowing how to deal with a newcomer to these lands. All that grandiose language about the purity of one's wilderness experience obfuscates the actual motive of not being willing share a public good.
As for the argument that the ruling only bans bikes, not the cyclist, it is a rather silly argument that does not really address whether the ban is legit to begin with. I can't wait for mules and horses to be banned from the NPS, and see how your argument goes over with the equestrian crowd. :)
Kurt,
I'm not maintaining that the organized national mountain bike lobby or local mountain bikers can veto Wilderness proposals. Enough have been passed over mountain bikers' resentment about lost trails (on Mt. Hood, Ore., for example) that no one could argue that we have that power. I'm certainly not asserting otherwise.
I'm saying only this: elected officials hate conflict and controversy. It causes someone to resent them no matter what they decide. In such situations, the safest course, and the default, is to stick with the status quo.
That's why mountain bikers don't try to seriously lobby Congress to clarify the Wilderness Act regarding bicycles. It wouldn't go anywhere, because it's a needless controversy as far as our federal legislators are concerned.
By the same token, however, Wilderness proposals (I'm quite sure of this) cause many members of Congress to groan and to wish to avoid dealing with them. The massive Utah Wilderness capture bill, for example, doesn't seem to be going anywhere. As you observe, it's a Representative and a Senator from Illinois and New York who are pushing it, because they're among the few with such safe seats and such predictable constituencies (people who take the subway or tend to farms and aren't much preoccupied about trails) that they won't experience blowback.
The proof is in the pudding. Many Wilderness expansion bills are introduced. Few succeed. Very few. The opposition of mountain bikers is one reason why. Just one among many, to be sure. The motorized groups are much more influential than we are.
On to your debate with Zebulon about Wilderness character and selfishness. I'd be in favor of managing Wilderness according to its character, but that has to mean its historical existence. So sure, let's bring in the claim-stakers, placer and sluice miners, Native Americans, trappers, and hunters, and let them restore Wilderness to the way it really was—not the way Wallace Stegner and many others thought it was when proposing the Wilderness Act decades ago. They thought it was a sanitized Eden free of humans' presence. They were wrong.
As for who's selfish, let me not start calling people names, but speak only for myself. My sense of "Wilderness values" (a term I dislike because, like "family values," it's code language for an ideology) might mean that I resent activities in Wilderness that require no physical fitness or outdoorsmanship (guided pack trips), activities that disturb the ground (overnight backpacking), those that draw flies (horses and mules), those that have huge carbon footprints (massive vehicles needed to bring horses to trailheads), or those that leave traces for weeks. But do I try to impose those "values" on anyone else? No. Live and let live. My sense of life enjoyment is sufficiently robust that I can appreciate wildlands
despite most momentary intrusions by others enjoying a wildland differently. (True, a constant stream of dirt motorcycles or ATVs is not fun.) Riding a bicycle on a trail is supremely innocuous, objectively judged by speed, noise, smell, immediate environmental impact, need for infrastructure, and carbon footprint. Why are other people so delicate and sensitive?
I realize that I will never convince you, Wilderness purists, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or the Wilderness Society. To be honest I'm not trying. It's worth investing time in these threads because other people read them and presumably some are influenced by what's said on them.
George, I liked your comment. I wish there were "like" buttons on this page.
Zeb, I believe you dodged the point I was trying to make.
It appears that you believe your wilderness experience is being ruined by not being able to ride your bike there, but don't believe you're ruining the experience for those who want to enjoy the wilderness without bikes, who specifically head to the wilderness to experience something that is harder and harder to find as development continues to spread and, to paraphrase George, more and more people want to take their preferred activity/mode of transportation/cybertether, into the wilderness.
Some pertinent sections of the Act:
Wilderness areas do serve the public good...regardless if you can ride your bike into them.
I think mountain biking is a laudably primitive and unconfined type of recreation. In 1980, Congress implicitly agreed that it is, when it said bicycles are OK in the Rattlesnake Wilderness in Montana.
Can someone explain how as a matter of law (rather than just some set of personal preferences that might be asserted or factors that might be hypothesized) mountain biking is not primitive but backpacking with advanced water-repellent fabrics, bright colors, sophisticated packs, sleeping bags made in China, GPS's, white-gas camp stoves, iPods, iPads, and satellite phones is primitive?